Adjustment Period
by breeeliss
Summary: "All the good parts go away," Marceline explained. "Being kind, being forgiving, being human...it doesn't come naturally to you. It disappears. And then you have whatever's left." Bubbline.


**Title:** Adjustment Period

 **Rating:** M

 **Summary:** "All the good parts go away," Marceline explained. "Being kind, being forgiving, being _human_...it doesn't come naturally to you. It disappears. And then you have whatever's left." Bubbline.

 **a/n:** I was rewatching Stakes and I kinda thought that Marceline took being re-vampirized a little too well? So I took the ending, added angst and Bubbline to it, and voila. Apologies in advance :P

 **Warnings:** This ain't gonna make a whole lotta sense if you haven't seen Stakes.

 **OOO**

 _Adjustment Period_

 **OOO**

.x.

Sucking souls was a strangely euphoric experience.

Once it was inside, it pulsed through your veins and dulled your senses until you were swimming in this warm, humming haze. It feels like there's two, four, ten of everything, because for a very brief moment there's two, four, ten of you. Your skin buzzes and your mind is singing and you feel like you're living an existence that's twice as vivid. But it's such a brief feeling — sucked up souls merge with your own in a matter of seconds, and then the magic is gone.

Vampire venom was completely different, and burned through you like a slow acting poison. It slips in like a virus, and leaves you in this small, precious window where nothing feels different except the chill in your skin and the silence in your chest. But then, once that window has passed, everything human about you begins to rot, and you gently start to die.

.x.

"Marceline, _glob_ , just….just please calm down, I'm — I'm coming right now!"

Bonnie was losing reception as she ran closer to the cave, and Marceline's hyperventilating and growling was mixing in with the static. She was pressing the phone closer to her ear in the hopes that she'd be able to make out more of Marceline's garbled pleas, but Bonnie couldn't discern a thing. She cursed, shut off the phone, and tried not to slip on the slick limestone floors as she trudged down towards the shore of the lake. She knew she shouldn't have left Marceline alone. She should have insisted she move into the palace with her so she could have taken care of her.

She'd forgotten to throw on her levitation boots, and realized that it was too late to run back and get them. So Bonnie dumped her phone into her pack, thanked Glob that it was waterproof, and jumped into the freezing lake water. Her muscles immediately seized up, and her limbs were almost locked too tense to be able to swim. But Bonnie could hear crashing and groaning coming from Marceline's house and echoing through the caves, and she knew she had to hurry.

Bonnie wrung the water out of her hair as she ran up the stairs to the house and pulled out the spare key that she knew was wedged in between the window sill and the glass panes. She struggled with the key before she barged in through the front door and looked frantically around Marceline's living room.

"Marcy?" she called out. Bonnie shed her sopping jacket and tried to quell her shivering when she heard a crash and a scream of frustration come from the kitchen. Bonnie slipped on the wet carpet and landed on her knees as she bolted for the kitchen.

She was panting in the doorway when she saw Marceline pulling out all the drawers and shelves from her fridge. Her cabinets had holes punched into them and claw marks scratched into their sides. Dishes, plates, and cutlery were pulled out of drawers and scattered across the floors. Marceline's claws were out and they were scratching fruitlessly around the empty fridge. She slammed her hands on the back of the fridge, and the entire house shook with the effort. Bonnie grabbed at the doorway to keep her balance, and stared at Marceline worriedly. "M-Marcy? Come on, tell me what's — ?"

"I went through all the red," Marceline said, her voice coming out like gravel grinding together, harsh and disjointed. "I w-went through all of it, it's all gone, there's no more."

Bonnie sighed out and tried to ignore the chill in her lips. "...I left you with a month's worth yesterday."

Marceline leaned her forehead against the fridge, her fingers digging holes into the linoleum. "I'm still hungry, Bonnie." She turned her face, and Bonnie gasped when she saw Marceline's eyes turn a pulsing, angry red and saw her fangs fully extended and poking out her lips. "You have to...you have to do that thing...the thing we talked about."

Bonnie straightened up. "But," she started. "You said to only do that if — "

"I know!" Marceline growled, the rafters trembling once more at the force of her voice. "Why do you think I called you!?"

Marceline groaned again and punched at the wall next to the fridge and left a sizeable hole when she pulled her fist back. Her other arm was braced across her stomach, and she started rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. Bonnie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled out her phone again. She started dialing a number when she looked back to Marceline. "Are you sure?"

Marceline didn't hesitate. "Just do it before it starts."

.x.

" _Princess, I do feel it's rather unwise to break from your duties so soon after — "_

"You don't understand, Pep. I need you to do this for me, and I need you to do it right now."

" _...Princess, is everything alright?"_

"No...I don't know. Look, I don't have the time to explain this right now, I just really need you to do everything I said, alright? You have to promise me."

" _Who's growling in the background? What are you — ?"_

"I _just said_ I don't have time to explain!"

" _...very well, Princess. I'll make the arrangements."_

"Thank you. And one more thing."

" _Yes?"_

"Get in contact with all the animals in Ooo that have blood running through their veins, and set up a blood drive. I don't care how you justify it, just get it done."

" _...as you wish Princess."_

.x.

Bonnie had spent weeks getting the metal right when Marceline had asked for it to be commissioned.

At the time, Marceline insisted that it was nothing more than a precaution. Vampirism was funny in that it was kind of like breaking in a stray dog. There was always a way to get it under control, but never a way to predict the day when it would snap out by accident and bite the hand that fed it. It was better to get the muzzle ready sooner rather than later. Bonnie didn't question it, and she learned that Marceline's favors, though few and far between, were never trivial.

It took countless trials of chemical testing and various stress tests with Marceline's help before Bonnie was able to create a metal alloy that was strong enough to keep a vampire hybrid like Marceline properly detained with little to no fear of her being able to escape. She melted it down, prepared the restraints, and kept them underneath the floorboards of Marceline's house in a safe that only Bonnie knew the combination to. It strangely wasn't a cause for worry. Bonnie had rarely ever seen Marceline in a state where she couldn't control herself.

But Marceline was now slamming her body into the forcefield generator that Bonnie had hastily put up to prevent Marceline from barreling from the kitchen into the living room, and she knew that this was the situation that her friend had been worried about. Bonnie was pulling back the floorboards and pulling the safe out when Marceline morphed into a strange, clawed, fanged, furred, winged creature and collided with the force field with an alarming force.

The field sputtered and flickered for a moment before righting itself. Bonnie was hastily spinning the combo while Marceline was screaming through the walls. " _BONNIE!"_

The chains were still inside along with a few other gadgets that Bonnie had taken the initiative to create with Marceline's continued insistence. Bonnie slung the chains over her neck and around her arms. "I can't let you out Marceline, you know that!"

But the screaming turned to wailing and turned to growling, and Bonnie knew the forcefield wasn't going to hold for much longer. She took her gadget that looked like an electric lantern and flipped it over to make sure that the batteries were still charged. Last time they tested this out, the light had at least somewhat mimicked the heat and burn of the sunlight, and left Marceline with a rather nasty rash in return. Hopefully twenty minutes worth of charge would last her.

Bonnie picked up the stun gun that she'd also pulled out of the safe, stood on her feet, and stared Marceline down. "Come on, Marcy. It's me. Just calm down, okay?"

She received a high pitched, monstrous wail in return and Bonnie winced as the sound grated against her ears. She nodded to herself, gulped in a huge breath, and aimed her gun at the forcefield generator. "I'm going to help you, Marcy. I'm just here to help."

She destroyed the device with one clean shot, and the forcefield slipped right down.

.x.

"You're not gonna get anymore red out of those, you know. They're practically white."

Marceline glared across the room at Bonnie, and spit the boot out of her mouth. "I'm starving," she croaked out.

Bonnie pressed her back further into the opposite wall and pulled the chain in her hand tighter. The webwork of chains that she had managed to encase Marceline in — a scratch across her back and a bruised shoulder later — pulled tighter around Marceline's body, and her friend groaned out in response. Bonnie was admittedly scared to let the chain go in case Marceline decided to morph into something that would give her enough slack to slip out of the chains. But luckily, Marceline was in her human form, albeit with eyes that were slitted and blood red. She seemed too exhausted and too hungry to bother with much anymore anyway. Their scuffle had taken a lot out of her.

"My boots were the only red thing I had on me," Bonnie explained calmly, wincing when her shoulder muscles tensed and made the scratch bloom with pain. "We have to wait for the blood to get here."

Marceline scoffed and banged her head back against the wall. Her skin was looking more sallow and more translucent, and she was gasping for breath like she had just run four miles. "...no," she muttered quietly. "Not doing that."

"Don't be stupid, Marcy," Bonnie glared. "You _need_ it."

"I haven't needed blood in over 1000 years," Marceline spit out. "I'm not gonna start now."

"Are you forgetting why you needed it in the first place 1000 years ago?" Bonnie snapped back. "Or are you being difficult on purpose?"

Marceline groaned against her restraints and dropped her chin to her chest. "You don't get it, Bonnie, you don't get it. I can't, Bonnie, I _can't_."

"Marcy — "

"I am _not_ one of those bloodsuckers," Marceline insisted strongly. "They're all dead for a reason, because they're all _scum_."

Bonnie felt her phone buzz next to her hip and saw a text message from Peppermint Butler flash across her screen, letting her know that it would only take a couple of more hours before he could send an envoy over to deliver a decent supply of blood. Hopefully it would last the week. She stared pitifully at Marceline, and winced when she heard her cough weakly. Shades of red were doing nothing for her in the state that she was in, and Bonnie was starting to realize that Marceline was fully aware of this.

She curled the chains around her wrist one more time and stared pitifully down at her feet. "You're not scum, Marcy," Bonnie said. "But you're weak. And you're hungry. And…" She swallowed the lump in her throat and sighed out instead, choosing not to finish her sentence. "Anyway...the blood will be here soon."

Marceline bit down on her bottom lip. "I won't drink it."

Bonnie smiled sadly. "Yes you will," she explained. "You won't be able to help it."

.x.

It wasn't ever something that she'd ever told Marceline before, but Bonnie treasured the fact that she had someone like Marceline to enjoy eternity with.

She, like her Candy Kingdom subjects, would prevail as long as Bonnie wished them too. But her kingdom was entirely of her own creation, and her subjects were also merely products of her own desire to carve a small place in Ooo for herself. One where her existence didn't seem like quite so much of an enigma.

Marceline wasn't something she created, and wasn't someone that remained with her out of monarchical duty. Their personalities fit together in a crooked yet oddly charming way, and Bonnie had finally found someone that showed an honest desire for her company and friendship. It helped that they wouldn't ever have to separate due to pesky things like sickness or mortality. For much of Bonnie's life, she felt as if she and Marceline were the same. Two, honest, good beings that could ride out their lives together forever.

Marceline was the sweet, refreshing feeling that came with ending a long day of ruling, the bracing, exciting chill that came from abandoning her castle and going on an adventure with no destination, the warm, safe hum of security that came from having someone to love.

But as Bonnie watched Marceline rip open bag after bag of donated blood and guzzle it down like a starved animal, the illusion started to break apart right before their eyes. Marceline was wiping blood off her chin and staring warily at Bonnie, and they both knew at that moment that, no matter what either of them chose to believe, there was always going to be a little part of Marceline — this dark, uncontrollable, ugly, terrifying part — that was truly monstrous.

.x.

"So...how long does it last?"

Marceline curled the quilt around her hand and tucked it underneath her nose. Bonnie was twisting strands of Marceline's hair in her fingers. They were both lying in Marceline's bed, on their sides, facing each other, each unable to get sleep. Marceline's skin was looking better, her eyes were brighter and normal, and her hunger seemed satiated for the moment. There were four more bags of blood on the bedside table just in case Marceline got hungry in the middle of the night. The doors and windows were locked, and the entire house was encased in another one of Bonnie's force fields, just in case Marceline got desperate and decided to pick up and look for food outside the house.

Bonnie had been mopping up the blood and cleaning the destroyed living room when she suggested a sleepover, just like they used to do in the old days. Marceline was in the kitchen sink, scrubbing caked up blood from her hair and her arms, looking drained and guilty, and readily agreed. They'd blasted through old movies, pulled out old vinyls to listen to, and even suffered through some board games that Bonnie had left here the last time she was here. But when they laid down together to try and sleep, their attempts at distraction failed beautifully before them, and the real questions were niggling at their minds. Bonnie couldn't help but ask.

Marceline shrugged in response. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "It lasted about...I don't know, maybe three weeks last time? Give or take a few days, wasn't really paying attention. But I don't know about now. I didn't even think it would happen again the second time around. I thought once was once, and that I'd just go back to how I was before that whole mess of trying to turn me human."

Bonnie and Marceline only ever planned for a complete loss of inhibitions on the off chance that Marceline ever lost control of her urges. They had a whole system, and so far it was followed to the letter. Secure Marceline. Secure the house. Secure the blood. They'd gone through it so many times because Marceline used to be so worried about it. Being a vampire for so long had slowly given her control in droves, and none of this was ever necessary. But the situation was different this time around and frankly a bit more terrifying.

"You never...well, you never explained what happens," Bonnie whispered quietly between the two of them. The green glow of the force field was filtering in through the windows and painting Marceline's worried face a light green. "I thought that when we left you, everything would be fine."

Marceline shook her head. "Not at first. At first you're fine. You know your heart isn't beating and you feel your skin stop aging, but that's it. But then you get so _so_ hungry, Bonnie. It feels like your stomach is burning and it just keeps burning no matter how much you put into it."

Bonnie worried her lip. "Then what?"

Marceline burrowed deeper into the sheets. "Then you start dying."

"What do you mean?"

"All the good parts go away," Marceline explained. "Being kind, being forgiving, being _human_...it doesn't come naturally to you. It disappears. And then you have whatever's left."

Bonnie furrowed her brows and closed Marceline's hands in one of her own. "If this is your way of telling me that you're a bad person, I'm not buying it," she said fervently. "I know that's not true."

"It _used_ to not be true," Marceline corrected. "Because I spent hundreds of years learning how to be good again, learning to ignore all of this. Ignore the hunger, the pain, wanting to just tear life apart and suck it dry, wanting to forget love and just be...cruel, and alone." She sighed out and moved closer to Bonnie, resting her forehead against Bonnie's collarbone and wrapping an arm tightly around her own stomach. "Good isn't natural for me."

Bonnie hugged Marceline closer and kissed the top of her head. "Being good doesn't come naturally to anyone."

Marceline snorted. "Tall words coming from a hypocrite."

.x.

Bonnie cooked, cleaned, called Pep about the kingdom, looked through her science journals, and went through every VHS tape that Marceline owned about three times over. There wasn't much to be done otherwise aside from watching Marceline and hoping that nothing strange happened. Marceline was still so vague about this process of acclimating to her new existence, and Bonnie wasn't sure what she was meant to be looking out for. All Marceline did all day was sleep, drink blood, and sit by the window, staring out into space and chewing on her knuckles as if she were trying with all her might to hold something in.

In fact, it seemed that was all Marceline was doing. Gripping walls too tightly, kicking table legs out of nowhere, gritting her teeth so hard her whole body would shake, and curling into herself so tightly that it seemed like she was trying to disappear. Bonnie learned not to touch Marceline when she was like this, because the response would always be a panicked jump and a snarl to leave her be and to not touch her again.

Bonnie was good about giving her a huge breadth, but she was also frightened about the amount of control that Marceline was trying to exhibit, and what things could possibly necessitate that kind of control to keep locked up. She only ever saw glimpses of it. Hearing Marceline scream in the bathroom, tear apart all the towels, and break all the mirrors. Punching holes into the walls out of nowhere. Holding her head and rocking back and forth on the couch. Muttering, always muttering things that Bonnie couldn't hear or understand.

It was only at night that she really ever go to hold her, and at night when Marceline practically wrapped herself around Bonnie, buried her face into her neck, and slipped into fitful sleeps that kept Marceline moving and thrashing until morning. But Bonnie got to hold her, and mutter into her ear that it was going to be alright, and press soft little kisses against her temples to calm her down into a pleasant slumber.

After hours of being on edge and wondering if Marceline would try to break out the house, try to attack Bonnie again, go through more blood than she needed to, it was always at night when Bonnie felt like things had finally gone back to the way they were. Having her most precious friend back, feeling her cold arms wrap around Bonnie's warm waist, feeling her breathing, twirling fingers in her hair. It felt safe, and familiar, and wonderful, and Bonnie never wanted to fall asleep and miss it.

Marceline would wake up the next morning, her self-control literally on the verge of being gnawed away, and Bonnie could only sigh in relief and know that she would never have to bury her best friend after all.

.x.

A week and a half later, Marceline started staring.

One morning, after Marceline had fed and while Bonnie was cooking herself breakfast, Marceline was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, sucking on her knuckles that were still bloody and scabbed over from biting and gnawing into them, watching Bonnie work. But while Bonnie was cracking eggs over the stove, she saw out of the corner of her eye that Marceline wasn't just watching her cooking. She was eyeing parts of her body — her wrists, her fingers, her neck, her shoulders, the slope of her hips. If there was blood running through her veins, Bonnie might have actually been afraid that Marceline might jump on her.

Bonnie straightened her back and shifted the pan in her hands. "You're staring."

Marceline's eyes didn't move. "No I'm not."

Bonnie rolled her eyes and looked back towards the table. "Yes, you are."

Marceline merely shrugged. She let one of her fangs nick her lip, and licked up the dark, dead blood that started to bleed out. "I like your hair when it's short," she muttered wistfully. "Makes your neck look longer."

Bonnie blinked curiously before turning slowly back to her cooking. "Um...thanks, I guess."

"And you still have those itty bitty wrists," Marceline continued. "You look so damn fragile, but you act like you're made of steel."

She turned away from the stove. "Marcy, what are you — ?"

"You should leave your shoulders bare more often. Makes you look softer."

"I'm serious," Bonnie frowned. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know," Marceline responded. She grinned too easily, like she wasn't completely sober, or like her thoughts were drifting too smoothly. "I've been feeling a little delirious..."

"Maybe you should drink more blood," Bonnie offered.

"No," Marceline shook her head. "No more blood. I need a distraction. I need to not have all these thoughts in my head."

Bonnie was starting to smell her eggs burn and she quickly shoved them off the fire. She sighed tiredly and rubbed her wrist into her eyes. "I thought you wanted me to leave you alone. I'm happy to leave you alone. I know you need space."

"I _thought_ I needed space," Marceline muttered, and the whole time her eyes were still roving, still drinking up every pore on Bonnie's body. "The space is making my head explode. I don't know what else to do."

Marceline sounded broken and tired, and Bonnie wanted nothing more than to drag her back upstairs into bed, forget the rest of the day, and just sleep away the afternoon. They could do that all day, and Bonnie wouldn't have minded. But Marceline's fingers were trembling, her leg was bobbing up and down, and her eyes were curving along Bonnie's jaw line as if she weren't quite sure to what to do with it. It made Bonnie dart her eyes over to the kitchen window to make sure that the force field was still humming strongly.

She gripped the counter and jutted her chin over to the living room. "Maybe you should take a nap."

"Yeah," Marceline nodded. "I _should_." Marceline stood from her chair and slunk over to the counter in a way that Bonnie had never seen her move before. Smooth, careless, and slow, like she was cornering a victim or prowling near an animal she was about to hunt. Bonnie lifted her chin, and instead of moving away and grabbing her safety as quickly as she could manage, her knees went weak and she felt warmth rush up to her cheeks that made her feel just a little lightheaded. Bonnie sucked on her lip out of nervousness, and Marceline watched the action with a deep intention. Marceline was licking her lips, staring at Bonnie's mouth, and leaning both of her hands on the counter so that Bonnie was completely boxed in between her arms. Her hands were shaking again, and she was drumming and dragging her nails violently on the counter.

It was the first time in a long time that Bonnie could remember being utterly floored and confused in Marceline's presence, and she was forcing her brain to chug along and analyze the situation with no avail. Bonnie's eyes fluttered closed when Marceline pushed closer — bracing for a bite, a hug, a kiss, she wasn't sure anymore — and she held her breath in anticipation for the tension to snap.

But Marceline merely reached one of her hands around Bonnie, reached to the back of the counter, and grabbed her cell phone. Bonnie swore that Marceline took a fraction of a moment to inhale as she moved away from Bonnie, but she couldn't quite be sure. Her heart was beating too loudly in her ears for her to really be paying attention.

Marceline slipped the phone into her back pocket and forced a smirk. "Needs to charge," she explained simply.

Bonnie nodded. "R-Right. Sure, yeah, totally."

Marceline inhaled sharply as she let her eyes dance over Bonnie's legs, but she exhaled, shook her head slightly, and turned on her heel back into the living room. "I'll be in my room. Get me when it's lunch time."

.x.

Bonnie didn't know much about being a vampire, but she knew quite a bit about what you needed to become one. It was a simple difference in biology. That was something that could be studied, could be explained.

During the early stages of figuring out the intricacies of The Procedure, Bonnie thought that the answer was in Marceline's blood. Marceline sliced open her hand, cupped her blood into a test tube, and told Bonnie to 'go crazy.'

It was darker than she remembered Finn's human blood being, probably deprived of the oxygen that it no longer needed to keep its host alive. Other than that, under a microscope, it didn't look any different than it should have been. In fact, it merely lent weight to the theory that Marceline wasn't really that different or that monstrous as she claimed.

But Marceline's blood was like a chemical substance. A chemical substance that was brimming with so much potential energy, so much entropy, so much activity just waiting to burst forth, waiting to be used, that it was startling. Bonnie remembered using Marceline's blood in a multitude of chemical reactions, just to see how much energy was released, just to see how chock full of pure _essence_ it was, and it never failed to be surprising. At the time, it made Bonnie realize that she needed to fashion serums and devices that were capable of holding and channelling this energy in a manner that wouldn't kill Marceline in the process.

But maybe this was all just like the first spark in a reaction before it settles. The big dust cloud before the explosion calms. The biggest rush of energy and excitement before everything stills and thoughts can be cleared and controlled.

An explosion with nowhere to go.

.x.

Marceline was sitting by the window of her bedroom, chewing through her nails, when Bonnie found her.

She wasn't letting herself think anything, really. It took every fiber of her being to keep herself from postulating and trying to hard with this, because she knew that doing that would ruin everything. Marceline used to always tell her that she never let herself feel enough — she was always concerned with work and getting things done as efficiently as she could. But she understood enough that nothing about this problem was one that required efficiency. It simply required an outlet, and outlets were best when they were open and unobstructed.

Bonnie stood in between her knees for a few seconds before Marceline lifted her head and raised an eyebrow in Bonnie's direction. She was about to say something — probably complain, and snap at her to leave her alone again — but Bonnie gently wrapped her hands around Marceline's wrists and pulled her nails away from her mouth. Marceline was licking her lips and staring at Bonnie curiously while Bonnie placed Marceline's hands on her hips, her fingers shaking with the effort. Marceline's nails immediately dug into her skin before letting up slightly and smoothing out the nail marks.

There wasn't any time to wonder about what this was supposed to mean, or what this was supposed to say about how Bonnie pieced together her feelings for Marceline in her head. There was only time to help Marceline, and Bonnie had convinced herself long ago that she was willing to do anything for her best friend. That's all this was, really. Helping. Marceline needed help, and Bonnie was able to give it to her, and how could she possibly bring herself to be nervous or afraid of such a thing?

Marceline was trying to be careful — her fingers were so tense and she was biting down so hard on her bottom lip that Bonnie was sure it was going to stay marked and bruised for days. Her hands were sliding along Bonnie's hips and Marceline was watching her hands move like something that had been hidden from her for the past two weeks had finally just zipped in front of her face. Bonnie's lids fluttered with Marceline's hand traced around her navel and up the center of her chest, all the way up to the hollow of her throat. Her thumb traced the indent there, and Bonnie could feel her apprehension like a horrid chill through the room.

Bonnie's hands slid up along Marceline's neck before they gently cupped her jaw. "If you hold it in any longer, you're going to kill yourself."

Keep her safe. Keep her alive. Keep her close.

Marceline only hesitated for a couple of seconds before her hand curled into Bonnie's hair and smashed her lips down on her own.

.x.

She slammed something onto the bedside table. "Stake me in the shoulder if you get scared."

Bonnie wanted it to sound romantic, but the stakes were too high and her body was tensing with a fear she never thought she'd feel around Marceline. It was like standing in front of a breathtaking hurricane, entranced with the wind whipping at the trees and rain pounding with gorgeous power, but being far too scared that the winds would lift her up into the sky and send her careening back down to Earth with enough force to kill her. The realization was hitting her as she shifted against the sheets and felt the scar on her back from yesterday brush against the fabrics.

Marceline could kill her. Marceline was thrumming with so much power, and she could very well kill her. She'd even went and prepared for it.

She was about to change her mind, but then Marceline's fangs were sinking into her neck and sucking out the color, and Bonnie's toes curled into the sheets. Her back bowed off the bed and she was grabbing onto whatever she could find — tendrils of hair that seemed to move and curl on their own, full hips that were rutting against her thighs, bony shoulders that were slicked in warm sweat, necks so smooth that her nails dragged through the skin like water, twisted, gnarled sheets that were wrapping around her ankles and pinning her to the bed.

Marceline's fingertips were freezing, and they were dipping into the curves and dips of her skin that were practically burning her fingerprints on contact, and Bonnie felt like each touch was going to light a fuse that was going to make her seize off the bed and scream into the ceilings. Marceline's mouth was over hers, biting at her lips, sucking on and bruising her skin, and digging her nails painfully into her breasts while she dove down and slid her tongue over the marks.

But she was dragging her nails down the wooden headboard and making deep rivets into the surface. She was yanking at Bonnie's hair a little too hard. She was leaving bite marks that were sore, throbbing, and bruised on her thighs, and her scratches were blooming on her skin and twisting and curling over each other like crosshatches. Everything hurt and everything stung, but her heart was beating out of her chest, everything was throbbing and pulsing beautifully, everything felt warm and wet and powerful, and Bonnie kept pressing her chest against Marceline's, kept frotting her hips against Marceline's hand, kept pulling Marceline by her hair so that their mouths could reconnect.

When Marceline finally entered her, the stretch was too quick and too hard, but she felt so full and so close to Marceline, that she realized this was all sort of inevitable. There was always this unspoken affection that Bonnie could never figure how to put into proper words — only that all of her attempts to keep Marceline close always felt shallow, like they weren't enough, like they weren't deep or meaningful or permanent enough.

But Marceline was moving with her, and they were moving together, and their breaths were mixing and their foreheads were pressing together and everything Marceline would mutter into Bonnie's mouth, she'd mutter right back. There was fumbling and misplaced limbs and thrusts that came too hard, but everything was so quick and so gorgeous, Bonnie realized that she needed this just as much as Marceline did.

There was no room in her head for clear thinking, and she sighed and moaned against Marceline's neck, shouting loudly in her own head that she was so blissfully happy that she could still keep Marceline. She was here, and everything was perfect, and she wasn't going to lose her again.

Everything was perfect.

.x.

"I always forget you need to do that whenever you get hurt."

Bonnie's teeth cracked against another bit of rock candy as she lifted her shorts to look at the incredibly deep bite mark on her inner thigh. She started massaging her skin, trying to mold her candied flesh back into some semblance of normality while she looked back up at Marceline. "I'm not hurt. I just need the extra roughage."

Marceline snorted and dipped her finger into the bag of blood she was balancing on her lap. She was so much more relaxed the morning — almost back to normal sans her diet — leaning against the wall and suckling blood off her finger like it was just juice from the strawberries she liked to snack on so much. "Don't you try and make this seem like it's no big deal. I hurt you. And you should be furious with me."

Their morning after wasn't what Bonnie thought it would be. She thought that they'd wake up in the late afternoon, their limbs tangled together with the sheets, more lazy morning sex, tripping and laughing down into the kitchen for food, lazing around for the rest of the day on the couch, and finally slipping back into that normal, silly friendship that was in the palm of Bonnie's hands only a few weeks ago.

But Bonnie woke up alone, with sheets that were dead cold, and her entire body feeling like she'd fallen from a hundred feet. Everything was sore and she struggled to get dressed. She found Marceline sitting on the floor, holding her head in her hands, surrounded by cabinet doors hanging off their hinges, broken plates skittered all over the floors, and chairs thrown against the walls with legs broken and seats split down the middle. Bonnie's attempts at intervening were practically useless, and Marceline ignored her in favor of guzzling down every last drop of blood they had left in the house, not caring that the blood was spilling down her arms and all over the floor. She even smeared her foot across the floor, as if she liked the mess. Bonnie didn't know what to say or how to react, so she called Pep, asked for more blood and candy, and stayed in the living room watching television while Marceline moped in private.

But she couldn't pretend to be completely disappointed about it. Because Marceline looked so much more relaxed, like so much had been shoved off her shoulders, and Bonnie refused to feel horrible about such a victory.

"I can't be furious about something I asked for," Bonnie sighed in exasperation. She pulled another piece of rock candy out of the bag that Pep dropped off today — he wouldn't tell her which Candy Kingdom citizen volunteered for the material, but she figured it would just distract her if she knew — and started to handle the frighteningly large bruise on her hip. "Besides. I'm an easy fix. I'm literally like play putty."

"Don't do that," Marceline groaned.

"Do what?"

"That thing you do whenever something horrible goes wrong and you try to play it off like it's fine," Marceline snapped. "Your whole 'keep-it-cool' stuffy, princess shtick that you always fall back on."

"You think that what happened last night was horrible?" Bonnie asked in disbelief. "That's rich coming from someone who was moaning out my name last night."

"You were supposed to stop me," Marceline warned. "I told you to stop me if something went wrong. You just stayed quiet, and I ripped into you like you were meat."

"Don't exaggerate — "

"It's not an exaggeration Bonnie!" Marceline insisted. "You look like you just got mauled."

Bonnie stared down at the grizzly bite mark on her shoulder that she still hadn't fixed. "They're just...bites and scratches. We were both excited. It happens."

But Marceline was shaking her head, swirling her finger around in the bag of blood like it was a fork she was using to push around food she didn't feel like eating. "No. That's _not_ how it happens. Sex isn't supposed to hurt. It's supposed to feel good. That's why we do it. To get away from the hurt."

"It did feel good," Bonnie argued back. She moved away from her spot against the couch and started to crawl across the floor over to Marceline. "It felt amazing. It was wonderful and perfect and I didn't want it to end."

Marceline was still keeping her gaze down in her lap. "You don't get it. That's not how I pictured our first time being."

Bonnie smiled. "You've pictured this before?"

Marceline grinned back sadly, her fingers messing with the plastic lining of the donation bag. "It doesn't matter at this point. It got all screwed up."

But Bonnie was shaking her head and reached across to brush her hand over Marceline's cheek. She didn't flinch away from the contact and she even leaned her cheek into Bonnie's hand, and everything was just so much better. A few bites and bruises were nothing if it meant she could finally touch Marceline without having her snap her teeth in her direction. But Marceline wasn't making eye contact with Bonnie and there was this strange putrid feeling that was radiating off of Marceline that was seeped in guilt and self-deprecation. She grabbed Marceline's other cheek, and tried to make Marceline look at her so she could convince her that nothing was wrong. "You screwed up nothing. Stop thinking that you did something awful."

"This," Marceline said, gesturing between the two of them, "was supposed to be sweet. And nice. And slow. And good. And I turned it into something terrible."

Bonnie shut her eyes. "No it wasn't terrible."

"Yes it was," Marceline replied. "But stupid me for thinking that I could have something nice and control myself at the same time." She shook her head out of Bonnie's grasp and pressed the heels of her palms against her temples. "Everything I'm feeling just feels like it's freakin' quadrupled, and I couldn't help myself. You were just there, in my room, and you looked so earnest and sweet and…"

Marceline trailed off and groaned out in frustration, making Bonnie jump at the noise. She sat back on her ankles and frowned. Quadrupled feelings. Maybe that meant quadrupled guilt as well. Maybe Marceline only thought this was the end of the world. She tilted her head and tried to explain as calmly as she could. "This will pass, you know. You'll get control of yourself. And then you don't have to worry."

Marceline huffed out her nose and looked up at Bonnie tiredly. "They won't _pass_. They'll get weaker. But they'll still be there. And you really don't get it." She leaned her face in closer for emphasis. "I wanted you. I still do. I always will. But I also loved hurting you. And that scares me _so much_."

Bonnie's eyebrows furrowed, and she instinctively felt herself lean backwards and move away from Marceline just an inch. Marceline must have seen the action clearly because she scoffed, as if she were completely unsurprised or had just been proven right, and leaned further back up against the wall. She was staring blankly at Bonnie, shaking her head slowly and wistfully. "Making you moan and sigh was great. But hearing you cry out and flinch and tense up when I bit too hard or grabbed too hard...it was _overwhelming_." She laughed darkly. "Know what the Vampire King told me once, long long time ago? The next best thing to actual human's blood was seeing their faces screw up in pain when he bit down. Never thought I'd understand exactly what he meant." Marceline threw her hands up in surrender. "But hey! Never thought I'd get re-vamped either."

Bonnie was swallowing back her apprehension, trying to salvage the conversation and turn it away from what Marceline was trying to delve into. Bonnie knew what Marceline was trying to do, and Bonnie was trying desperately to stop it. "But look at before! Before all of this mess. You were fine. You couldn't hurt anything on purpose. You drink shades of red because you refuse to hurt people on purpose. You're _good_ Marceline. Please. Stop it."

Marceline scrunched her hands together like she was trying to grasp onto something she wasn't understanding. "This is new for me...all over again. I _was_ good. I spent hundreds and hundreds of years learning how to be good." She suddenly looked like she was about to burst into tears for a split second before she sobered up and blinked assuredly. "I have to re-learn it. And it's not coming easy to me like I thought it would. But this is what I get!" Marceline smiled sarcastically. "This is what I get for trying to get something I could never have."

"Marceline, please," Bonnie begged. "Don't say that — "

"I mean, heck. Imagine had I stayed human," Marceline pondered. "You'd be glowing instead of bruising. And we'd be doing it again instead of fighting."

"Marcy — "

"I wanted to be something I couldn't," Marceline continued. "I wanted to be normal. But I _can't_ because I'm the lock and key that's holding in the rot and scum that wiped out all the humans. _I_ keep that in. No one else can. And the price for me keeping it all in like the martyr that I am? I get to stay a monster. And I get to hurt the people I care about." Marceline laughed, looked down at her food, and did a careless short of shrug before she pulled her finger out and lapped up the blood again. She looked Bonnie dead in the eyes as she did it. "Yeah. This is paradise, Bonnie. Everything I ever wanted."

Bonnie inched closer and tried to place her hand on Marceline's shoulders before Marceline shrugged the contact away. "You're not a monster, Marcy," Bonnie comforted. "Everything will be normal soon, you'll see. And it'll just be us again. Forever. Remember? Hanging out forever?"

"Yeah," Marceline assented, her voice getting thick and cracking under the pressure of her words. "Forever. And ever. And ever. And ever. No more growing older. No more tanning in the sun. No more eating normal food, like normal people. And pretty soon, I'm going to outlive even you. Maybe even finally scare you off. And it's just going to be me again. Alone."

Bonnie sucked on her lip and tried to touch Marceline again, but she got up and took her blood with her, floating up the trap door that led to her room.

"Marcy," Bonnie tried as Marceline shut the door upstairs and bolted it shut. "Marcy, please talk to me!"

But Marceline didn't come down, and Marceline didn't want to talk. She stayed up there for the rest of the day, and Bonnie spent the night on the couch.

.x.

It took another week and a half before Marceline was able to suck the red out of all her refrigerator magnets and confidently say that she felt full.

She was standing in front of the fridge and took a few seconds where she looked longingly at the blood still left there, like a habit she wasn't sure she could shake. But Marceline stood back while Bonnie pulled everything out of the fridge and made sure to throw it all out so that Marceline wouldn't dare be tempted by it. She hovered over the couch, her knees tucked to her chest and her chin resting on her knees while Bonnie moved around. Bonnie packed her things, tidied up the kitchen, and but the chains and guns back into the safe and underneath the floorboards where they would hopefully never need to be used again. Once she had gone outside to disable the forcefield around the house, everything was said and done, and it was time for her to leave. Pep couldn't watch over things for her forever.

Bonnie was adjusting her pack and double checking to make sure that her gadgets were all accounted for while Marceline stayed rooted in the same spot. Bonnie peeked up at her and worried her lip over the intent stare Marceline was giving her. There was no energy left in Bonnie to be harsh or defensive — there really wasn't energy left for anything anymore — so she replied flatly. "Did I miss a bite mark or something?"

She didn't look up to see whether the insensitivity was poorly received, but Marceline barely moved to register it anyway. Bonnie sighed and checked her cell phone one last time to see if there was an envoy who could meet her halfway to the Candy Kingdom so that she wouldn't have to walk the whole way again. "Is there anything else you need?" Bonnie asked. "For real this time."

Marceline mumbled through the material of her jeans. "No. I should be fine. I promise."

It was such a weak promise it was practically crumbling to pieces the moment it left Marceline's mouth. But Bonnie supposed she just had to take it, because there really was nothing else that she could ask for. At least not now. She nodded to herself rested her hand on the doorknob. "Well, if you need me, you know where to find me. And I'm just a phone call away."

Marceline nodded glumly and stared down at her toes, looking so small and so vulnerable that Bonnie couldn't help but stare. There was a lingering desire to pull Marceline in for a hug, tuck her head under her chin, kiss her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips, everything that she could reach, if only to make Marceline look more like herself. But there was a chasm between them that Bonnie didn't have the courage to cross. Their friendship just so happened to be full of them.

Figuring that her stay was already past the point of appropriate, she pulled the door open to start her trek home. She barely crossed the threshold when Marceline cleared her throat and spoke.

"Tell me honestly."

Bonnie turned back to Marceline and watched her lower her legs and cross them comfortably. "Yes?"

Marceline swallowed. "When I was bit by the Vampire King again, and I turned...you were a little bit relieved, weren't you?"

Bonnie blinked at the question. Her hand was trembling on the knob. "What do you mean?"

"I know you Bonnie," Marceline continued. "You'd never approach your experiments with anything less than 120%. But you were secretly hoping that machine wouldn't work. And when I got turned again, you breathed a huge sigh of relief." Her eyes hardened. "Is that true?"

Bonnie bit the inside of her cheek when she saw the accusatory look in Marceline's eyes. It was almost cruel, because Bonnie just wanted to take her crippled feelings and deal with them in private, hoping for the day when she'd finally have the gall to come back to Marceline's house and pretend everything was normal and not like everything had suddenly just got pulled from underneath them. But Marceline wasn't ever the type to leave well enough alone. She always wanted answers, reasons, and justifications. If there was a knife already in the wound, Marceline wanted to finish twisting and pulling it out so that she could deal with all the blood in one shot. Bonnie wished she had the nerve to own up to that kind of honesty. She never had it, and she envied Marceline for being able to dredge it up so well, but this time Marceline wasn't giving Bonnie a choice.

There wasn't any time to come up with a softer lie, so she settled. "Yes," she muttered, almost at a whisper. "Yes, it's true. I wanted to keep you. I didn't want you to grow old."

Marceline's eyes widened a fraction, but other than that, she didn't move an inch. "You wanted me to stay a vampire?"

"I wanted you to stay immortal," Bonnie clarified. "I didn't want you to stay a...a _monster_." Bonnie purposefully forced out the word, because she didn't believe it for one second, and she wanted Marceline to know that. "I just wanted you to stay with me."

Marceline looked at her pitifully. "We could have been together for as long as I would have been alive."

But Bonnie shook her head. "It wouldn't have been good enough. You would have left _me_. I preferred the other way around."

Marceline frowned. "You'd rather you leave me, than me leave you." She paused and rolled her tongue along her teeth. "Why does that sound selfish?"

"Because it is," Bonnie answered. "It is a selfish thought. But I won't stop thinking it. And anyway, you're _not_ human. So it makes no sense to wonder about these things. It's done. You're not going to outlive me. You're not going to scare me off. You're stuck with me."

Bonnie expected more silence, but Marceline laughed softly instead, some of her hair falling in front of her face in a way that looked positively endearing. She was staring down at her hands, looking lost and unsure. "I guess you're right."

Bonnie smiled tiredly back at her. "Forever. And ever. And ever. And ever."

"And ever, and ever."

The joke didn't relieve the thick air for very long, and soon Bonnie was scuffing her grey boots against the carpet. Marceline was yanking at her hair and picking at her split ends like she always did when she was trying to pretend to be busy and remove attention from herself. Bonnie was slowly running out of excuses to stay longer. She clicked her nails against the metal doorknob. "You said last week that you still wanted me. Is that still true?"

Marceline's fiddling stopped and she looked up at Bonnie curiously. She floated forward before unfolding her legs and touching her feet to the ground. "Yeah," she responded. "It's still true."

Bonnie cursed at her body for suddenly perking up and warming at the admission. "But you can't."

"No," Marceline muttered. "Not now."

Bonnie nodded and set her jaw. "And if I said I thought you were a coward?"

Marceline scoffed. "I'd say there was a time where _you_ were the coward. And I was the one who was selfish. Different round, same game. Guess we really are made for each other."

Bonnie wanted to be upset, but she couldn't really go through the effort of denying it. In some strange way, Marceline was right. It didn't really hit her how knowing someone for so long could actually hurt you more. Maybe this was more of what Marceline was talking about. A relief in humanity and in knowing with certainty that everything eventually had an end. She shrugged helplessly. "Everything ends," she said firmly. "Everything ends, and then everything is cleared away, fresh. Then you get to start over." Bonnie looked at Marceline. " _Everything_ comes to an end. And it always gets better. You at least believe that don't you?"

Marceline didn't look like she knew the answer, or at least was doing an admirable job of staying quiet. But she moved forward slowly and gently reached down to tighten one of the straps to Bonnie's pack. Her hand rested on her shoulders, thumbs gently working into the small space between Bonnie's neck and shoulder and making sure to not apply too much pressure. She could feel Marceline's care and could still tell that, despite the eye of the storm passing, Marceline was just as cautious as ever.

Marceline stilled her thumb for a moment while she leaned in and placed a soft, slow kiss on Bonnie's cheek. Bonnie felt her eyes flutter shut, but didn't get to enjoy the intimacy before Marceline was backing up a few inches and leaving them with space, severing the connection. "You believe it so strongly. So how could I not at least hope just a little bit?"

.x.

That night, Bonnie remembered the promise she made to Marceline, the one she'd fulfill when Marceline eventually withered away, died, and left Bonnie all alone. But Bonnie never imagined a death like this.

But death could never touch the two of them. If there was one thing Bonnie knew being alive for more than 800 years, it was that when the two of them died, they always found ways of coming back.


End file.
